The Madras High Court observed that the responsibility of the Elephants should be taken by the Forest Department through appropriate policies, owned by the Temples or private individuals.
There must be a uniform policy that all elephants, privately owned or temple owned come under the care of the Forest Department and future ownership of elephants by individuals and temples be completely prohibited. The Forest Department should come up with an appropriate plan to ensure the well-being of the elephants that are now privately owned and temple owned and may not be treated ill will.
This observation was made by the Division -judge bench of Madras High Court, comprising of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy while dealing with the petitions pertaining to temple elephants and other elephants owned by private individuals, whether such elephants are used by their owners to be exploited for joy rides or the elephants are used as beasts of burden or to transport heavy material.
The Court was of the view that exploitation of animals for all the purposes should be stopped except in certain cases and held that:
“there must be a uniform policy that all elephants, privately owned or temple owned come under the care of the Forest Department and future ownership of elephants by individuals and temples be completely prohibited. The Forest Department should come up with an appropriate plan to ensure the well-being of the elephants that are now privately owned and temple owned and may not be treated so well as was evident from a video which went viral on the social media a couple of days ago. Any kind of mistreatment of elephants and other animals must be dealt with promptly and as mercilessly as such persons deal with the animals.”
The Bench allowed the writ petitions and granted eight weeks time to State to frame appropriate policies to prevent animals from future exploitations.
Case Details
Case: W.P.Nos.3656, 3660, 3662, 3663 of 2021
Petitioner: Rangarajan Narasimhan
Respondent: The State of Tamil Nadu & Ors
Quorum: Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy
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